Abstract

The cooking banana (matooke) was identified as a target food crop for development in Uganda amidst high levels of malnutrition and food surpluses in the country. The aim of this study was to optimize incorporation of soy into raw, instant and extruded hybrid matooke (Tooke) flour for making soup and porridge in order to supplement the cooking banana as a raw material for the food industry. Raw, instant and extruded Tooke flours (RTF, ITF and ETF respectively) fortified with soy were substituted with correspondingly processed hybrid banana flour (HB) at seven levels for preparation of soups and porridges as indicative products, and their acceptability was determined to establish the optimal ratios of HB substitution. A quadratic surface response model was used to determine optimal HB levels based on consumer acceptability of the soups and porridges produced. The findings indicate that optimal ratios for HB varied with processing technique and product type. The optimal HB levels were 19.3, 28.8 and 8.2% for RTF, ITF and ETF soy-fortified porridges, respectively and 7.6% for ITF soy-fortified soup. Extrusion cooking was reported as the more appropriate technology for HB incorporation into soy-fortified Tooke based porridges because it allowed the highest level of substitution with HB. Further, the porridges were more acceptable as compared to the soups; hence the above ratios could be adopted for use in making children’s porridges incorporating HTF.

Key words: Extrusion cooking, porridge, soup, matooke, acceptability.